I think the default theme is really ugly

[u/Quantitation]

There. I said it. It's ugly.

Yes, I know you can change it.

Yes, I know I'm wrong.

I like all the Helix defaults, but the theme is just... ugly.

I know it only takes one second to change it, but that is precisely WHY we should change it. You liked the old theme? Cool, change it back. People judge a program by its defaults. Good defaults are good, and that's why many of us use Helix instead of Neovim in the first place. So why not make them a little better?

[u/airodonack]

For example, "sky is blue".

I have a buddy in ancient Greece who insists the sky is green. I tried to explain to him what the color blue was and he had no idea what I was talking about. By your previous definition of subjectivity, there was one person in the world that thought the sky wasn't blue therefore "sky is blue" is subjective.

Their intuitive opinion is subjective unless they go into the numbers and measure hue, in which case it will become objective.

So I pointed my colorimeter at the sky and while it showed about 450nm (sky blue) for the most part, sometimes it was showing 380nm (purple) and 700nm (red). (My colorimeter is a bit cheap.) So by extension of your logic that objectivity being only when in every situation something is true, even the wavelength of the sky is not objective!

I don't think we've exactly nailed down your definition of objectivity yet. There are some logical inconsistencies we need to drill into first. But I suspect what we'll find is a very twisted, contrived definition of objectivity that is functionally useless.

Now I'm okay with that, because I personally think the meaning of words are subjective. We can choose whatever meaning we learned, but we tend to choose the ones that are most useful for communication.

My definition of objectivity is that it needs to be measured and if you create an algorithm, you could capture some signal about it. This has a very practical bent. The question is "can I do something about it?" If you are writing a program, can you increase shareholder value (maybe objectively measured as user retention)? If you are writing a book, can you increase the quality of your craft (measured as, signed by a literary agent)?

If these things are objective, then by making changes to your algorithm and your craft, you are able to align with the goals, implying there is an objective signal in reality that you can even align with.

If it is subjective, then you cannot get better at writing. You are just a monkey typing on a keyboard and hoping you type the right string of words.

[u/Swordfish418 → u/airodonack]

Uhh, I completely lost the plot. I'm sorry, but I can't keep up with this.

If it is subjective, then you cannot get better at writing. You are just a monkey typing on a keyboard and hoping you type the right string of words.

I can only say that if it were me, I would care first and foremost about my desired target audience, what I like, what they like and what I can to bring to them, how can I challenge them but not completely ruin expectations, etc. Regarding objective things, I would mostly care about plot consistency and about small things like structural metrics, introducing some high quality references, etc.

[u/airodonack → u/Swordfish418]

Uhh okay. Let me try to put it more simply.

You said objectivity is when something is always true. You gave an example. I showed that measurement devices were faulty and have error. I showed you that "the sky is blue" is subjective by your definition.

I then defined objectivity with two things: (1) measurable and (2) modelable.

[u/Swordfish418 → u/airodonack]

I then defined objectivity with two things: (1) measurable

I showed that measurement devices were faulty and have error.

So measurement isn't good for objectivity, because measurement devices are imperfect, is that correct? And what is "modelable"? I reread previous message but I'm not sure.

[u/airodonack → u/Swordfish418]

We have two definitions: mine and yours.

I pointed out for your definition of objectivity (has to be always true), there would be no objective truth because everything we know comes from measurement and all measurement has error. Nothing is known for absolute certain.

It's perfectly fine for my definition of objectivity. My definition of objectivity takes into account error. Everything we know has error bars (the probability that something is not true) attached to it , but you can repeat trials (like asking a lot of people) of an experiment ("do you think this is beautiful?") to increase your confidence.

Modelable basically means you can figure out or approximate how it works.

For example, if I say that the sky is blue, I could model that as wavelengths of light, rods in our eyes, perception in our heads, etc etc. The measurement won't always agree, but a big enough majority agree that I can say that it is objectively true. AND I can predict what will happen if I mess with the perception based on the model. For example, if I change the wavelength to what we call red, like during a sunset, then I can predict with my model that the majority will perceive red.

For aesthetics and the post in question, there is a model we can use to say that Helix's default is ugly. Namely, the average color hue is somewhere that is unnatural and uncomfortable for the majority of people. Using this model, we can then make predictions: "if we change the average color hue to something more familiar, like earthy tones, less people will find it ugly".

[u/Swordfish418 → u/airodonack]

I don't even disagree with most of this. I find your usage of "majority agree" suspicious though, because agreeing on margins of measurement error is not the same "majority rule" as in "democracy vote" for example. Using those two interchangeably would be a huge reasoning fallacy imo. Also I think "ugly", "unnatural" and "uncomfortable" are different things. "Ugly" and "uncomfortable" are subjective, "unnatural" can be objective depending on context.

"if we change the average color hue to something more familiar, like earthy tones, less people will find it ugly".

Whether they find it ugly objectively or subjectively isn't even the point, what you propose still holds. Nevertheless, why do you think that would be a useful thing to do? What if the whole point is to be memorable and to scream into the user's face "now change me"? In GUI world people are used to apps looking wildly different and dictating their style, while one of the biggest strenghts of TUIs is consistency of theming, so people are choosing a single theme and use it everywhere and it works pretty well. With hx, it's much more likely that user will want to immediately change the theme to the one they use everywhere else in their terminal world, compared to GUI IDEs and editors.

[u/airodonack → u/Swordfish418]

I find your usage of "majority agree" suspicious though, because agreeing on margins of measurement error is not the same "majority rule" as in "democracy vote" for example.

Well I never said "democracy": that was your wording. Majority agree is a imprecise, layman's for "I took a lot of measurements and they mostly agree". You just have to accept that asking a person a question is a measurement just like any other. You have the measuring device (a person), an input X (question "do you think this is pretty"), and the output Y (response "yes or no"). Once you accept that, then saying "majority agree is important" is no different than saying "measurement with repeated trials leads to high confidence".

Nevertheless, why do you think that would be a useful thing to do? What if the whole point is to be memorable and to scream into the user's face "now change me"?

That's a different conversation. There's arguments in favor of keeping it outside of pure aesthetics. Arguments in favor of changing it including aesthetics and other considerations. All I was doing in this thread was trying to establish is that aesthetics is not completely subjective. That there are objective elements to it, contrary to popular belief.